Critical collaborators and employees that always complain? Practical guide for cure and prevention…

Hello, today I want to talk to you again about problematic collaborators: that is to say, critical employees that always complain and that make your company an unbearable place.

Let’s examine the main causes and the solutions for each one.

I will also explain how to prevent situations of conflict and tension caused by these type of people: critical employees that always complain. And finally a surprise for you… and how to start doing something about it right away!

Expose the collaborator in front of you and understand who he really is.

There is no problem of the perfect or right employee or collaborator for your company. Every person is different; with their values, beliefs, sense of ethics, personal and professional goals.

Similarly, the company is an entity that has values, beliefs, a sense of ethics, a corporate mission and vision that are those of the founder. Finding the perfect union is very hard. It is better to focus on another objective.

The alignment of the collaborator’s goals, values, sense of ethics, behavior and communication with those of the company.

It’s a matter of finding the correct mix, where to start from, and to understand how much work is necessary to turn him into an aligned collaborator. In an article that I wrote previously I described the problem of the critical employee that complains and how to deal with it: Critical employee – complaints: 3 things to do.

As a matter of fact, today i realized that in that article i only gave part of the solution for this big problem.

I want to share with you my recent experience, to better explain this concept.

A recently hired employee that even though she is a good worker and she does show commitment, is often embroiled in personal problems that make her negative and hard to manage.

At one point the client-company decided to hand her over to me so that I could help her.

I made a coaching program for her to recognize and deal with sources of stress. There was a good result at the beginning. She changed her communication and how she dealt with people, mainly with those that she recognized as “sources of stress” (outside of the work environment). At the end of this program she personally writes:

” …I understood that by controlling my mind, my reaction, how I look at things and how I talk to people I can actually change many things. Since I started to ‘ try’  to follow these things mentally I feel better”

I also gave her some knowledge on ethics that could apply to the situation. Thanks to this she started to do things in harmony with the people around her. But it did not last long.

Why?

Her personal goal, as well as her values, were not aligned with those of the company. She was looking for a job to have a salary and to then care about her life with her fiancè.

• The company looks for someone who passionately supports its product and service. She sees her job as a right to defend at all costs.
• The company offers an opportunity to actively participate in a campaign that fights against pollution and health damage.
• She wants to safeguard her interests not accepting interruptions from her job. She is not willing to work extra hours not in the contract.
• The company is a family where people help each other and collaborators don’t skimp if they need to stay extra hours if there is an emergency.

From these points you could already see the upcoming conflict that eventually took place. I only got to one part of the problem. There was something even more basic that had to be spotted.

Alignment and misalignment

To implement an actual alignment of the employee or collaborator with the company 3 steps could be necessary

Alignment on behavior and communication

This remedy can be implemented with the employee that already has a good relationship with the company. That is to say the corporate mission is fascinating and attractive, the values are similar and there is a general consistency. A perfect example of this could be that of a collaborator that has always wanted to contribute to safeguard the planet with products that respect nature and the ecosystem and works in a company that produces clean energy.

They have the same values of protecting the environment, working in a team and openness on all communications. The job that has to be done is to teach him the communication rules in the company, the procedures and the policies that are used.

An example of how this could be done is this…organizational board and job description.

After this the employee will basically be totally aligned.

Productivity, meeting the company objectives and engagement in the strategies will not be a problem.

Alignment on ethics and actions

Here we are in a situation where it is not enough to train the collaborator exclusively on the corporate method but working on his or her personal growth is also required. Also based on the example above. If we found ourselves with a collaborator who while sharing the mission and having it at heart, in his life experience has always acted mainly thinking about his own advantage, conditioning and treating with little respect the people in his environment. In order to successfully add him in the company staff we have to do something about it otherwise the result with regards to his attitude and company productiveness could not be the one we expected. An example of how this could be done is…here.

Alignment with the goals

Here we have a divergence of goals. For example a company of the automotive sector that wants to increase its market share and a collaborator that considers it as a waste and as one of the main causes of pollution. The views differ markedly. Sooner or later the situation will fall to pieces and the collaboration will end. Apparently it is the only solution.

There could also be a situation in which the company did not clearly set its goal or mission. If this were the case, how could you ever find the right people and align them if not even the company is aware of its mission.

Having money as the only motivation would not be so nice after all, article: Do employees work only for money?

Unfortunately it is not as rare as you would think. In this case we should start by clearing up what the founder/s really want to accomplish in life, and only after having done this, what they want to accomplish in their activity. This could be a valid tool: Life Plan.

But let’s suppose that we meet a collaborator that is great ethically, professionally and is simply a little insecure about what his goal in life is? Wouldn’t it be good to try and align him? Perhaps using a Life Plan.

Conclusion

There will always be to some degree in any activity where there are people, critical employees who always complain and that are unhappy and demotivated. But it is important to draw a line and know how to keep control of the situation. A good percentage would be to not have more than 20% of problematic collaborators.

The key is the alignment of your personnel with your mission and your corporate values. Therefore in order to create a productive and successful team it is necessary to:

• define and clear the personal and corporate goals of the owner/s of the company
• use the alignment with the goals of the collaborator and the corporate mission in case they get along on ethics, behavior and competences but not on the goals, if there isn’t a big divergence, in that case it’s better to let go
• use alignment on ethics and actions with the collaborator in case there is an agreement with goals and values
• use the alignment on behavior and communication, in case there is an agreement with goals, values and ethics.

And finally I want to give you the opportunity to measure the general mood that there is in your company by establishing the toxic percentage due to critical collaborators that always complain about everything.

But not only!